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Mona Bitar

Welcome everyone to our ‘Strong When We Belong’ podcast series. In this episode, I'm going to focus on gender equity in the workplace, which also connects with the International Women's Day theme of creating gender equity. I'm Mona Bitar, I'm EY UK and Ireland vice chair, and I'm delighted to be joined by a number of people on this episode. I started this podcast series because I fundamentally believe in the power of storytelling and I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Today I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by key leaders who are using their platforms in order to influence this subject. So, Rachel Osborne, who is the CEO of Ted Baker, former CFO of Debenhams and former CFO of John Lewis. A Mentor, experienced speaker and role model. James Pereira, now King's Council, a barrister, professor of law at Kings College, Coach, writer, speaker on matters relating to professional performance and well-being and inclusion. And last but by no means least, our very own Anne-Marie Balfe who is the EY talent partner for our EMEA Financial services practise and previously the talent leader for Global People advisory Services and Talent leader for our Asia Pacific Financial Services. I'm going to let you all do a quick personal introduction to make this a little bit real. So maybe, Rachel, I'll start with you.

Rachel Osborne

Hello everyone, I'm Rachel Osborne. I'm delighted to be talking on this topic with Mona and with James and with Anne-Marie.

Bitar

OK. Thank you, Rachel. James.

James Pereira

Hi, yeah, I'm James Pereira. Yeah, great to be here and just to explore what everyone's got to offer and where the conversation goes.

Bitar

Great. Anne-Marie.

Anne-Marie Balfe

Thank you, Mona. I'm delighted to be here. It's an absolute passion of mine and really looking forward to chatting to everybody about it.

Bitar

Well, I don't think any of you are looking forward to it as much as I am. And in this conversation, I really want to explore how do we identify potential barriers and opportunities to create gender equity in the workplace. From an EY perspective, we offer lots of input from all sorts of stakeholders both internally and externally around the world, we decided to incorporate equity more explicitly and ultimately came to the term diversity, equity and inclusiveness. And why did we do that? Because actually I think equity has become a real focal point of diversity and inclusion, particularly with the increasing socio-political polarisation that we've been seeing and social inequities and really why we want to build equitable systems and practises to ensure that we have the right employee experience. And we see the impact of inequality and injustice all around the world. And I believe firmly that the role of organisations like ours and others and the business community at large have a big role to play in shifting some of these conversations and getting to tangible actions and using our platforms to do this. So, let's, without further ado, get started with a few questions. James, I'm going to come to you first, if I may, with, you know, what does creating equity actually mean? As a barrister, as a coach and someone who speaks about it. What does actually creating equity mean?

Pereira

Well, I guess I can best from my perspective explain that by telling you where it all started for me. In 2013, I first applied to be a QC and there are various competencies you have to show excellence in, and one of them is diversity. I remember how to do my application form and then there's an interview and so on and everyone thought I'd get it first time around and then the email or letter came, and I failed, and I failed on diversity, and it was the only thing I'd failed on, and I was kind of outraged by this right. I'm mixed race Indian, Irish. My grandparents are Irish Catholic English Protestant. The mother of my children is of Indian origin, but Pakistani Muslim. My children are Muslim. My wife now is part Bayesian, part African Ugandan. You know, I've kind of grown up with all of this around me. And I realised actually it wasn't about being, it was about doing. It wasn't about being diverse; it was about doing. So, I then had my interview second time around in 2014 and I can remember ending it in tears and the reason that was and it may well happen to me now on the podcast is so I had the interview and they asked me lots of questions about diversity and I had this like sweet shop confectionery kind of presentation of all these wonderful things I've been doing in the last year for diversity. And then this guy who ironically was an Indian guy, I think said to me, he said, well Mr Pereira that's all very well and those answers are excellent but what does diversity actually mean for you? And I could feel this literally this kind of lump in my throat and I can kind of, I can feel it now as I talk about it again. And I just pressed something really deep, and I said to him, well, my father came over here in the 50s from India and he had a great education but didn't have any contacts, didn't have any family. And he told the story to me several times actually that he was a doctor, a surgeon, and he'd helped somebody get their eyesight back and this chap had raved about my father, although it's quite a simple operation. He said, oh, there's Mr Pereira. You know, he helped me get my eyesight back. And many years later my father had applied for a job as a consultant in a hospital. And he'd been up against the retiring consultant son, among other people. And this was in rural Suffolk. And my father's a little Indian guy dark skin and everything and my father just thought, well, I'll go for it, but I don't think I have a chance. And he got it and he got it, and he stayed there and worked there all his life. And many years after getting it, he was walking on the hospital corridor and he saw walking towards him this man, and he recognised him. And the man stopped him and said, Ohh, Mr Pereira, I'm so glad to see you. I'm so glad you got the job. And my dad said what? And he goes, well, I was one of the people on the selection panel and I was able to tell them what a great surgeon you were and what great client care skills you had and so on and my father had no idea about this at all. No idea at all. And so, he would always say to us. That we all rely on opportunities given by other people, and we should also give opportunities to people when we can if we're ever lucky enough to do that. So, for me the creating equity is about giving opportunity to people who wouldn't otherwise get them because of who they are or where they've come from. And I appreciate that opens up all kinds of other questions about what that means, but for me, that's it. And that's a way of honouring kind of where I've come from too.

Bitar

Lovely James, thank you so much for sharing that personal story and actually I think you hit on something there about you know creating opportunities and there's so much and I hate the word, but I will use it nonetheless, there's so much intersectionality with so many different aspects, but you can have disadvantages or inequity in certain areas and great privilege in other areas, but actually that doesn't always make the path easier. So, I think the story is very powerful about how it is so important for us to be mindful of the opportunities that we can give to people. So, thank you for sharing that. Anne-Marie, maybe I'm going kind of come back to you now on having heard that and having been aware of the global social equity campaign that we've been running at EY and come to life, what do you see or what's working, what isn't working? What do we need to do more of?

Balfe

So, I think it's a great question and James first of all thank you very much for sharing that story. I could just see us all smiling and nodding and having those moments of recognition with everything that you've said. I think we all have stories like that that we've built into our psyche of how we should either be paying it forward, or how we rely on the kindness of others, or rely on the processes that happen and hopefully ensure that those processes happen properly to get an equitable outcome. And sometimes that doesn't actually work. So, if I maybe go back to your question, Mona, I think. We at EY have looked at diversity and inclusion has been an integral part of everything that we've done for the last I would say 10-15 years and more recently we've added the social equity element to that in an effort to try and re-balance things a little bit more to help people understand the privilege that they all have or understand or raise that level of awareness around it so that we can create more equity across the business. We introduced a programme last year to raise that level of awareness because I think people come into a scenario with their own set of biases, their own perspective on life and assume that they've had the same challenges as everybody else. Assume that they've fought to get the role that they've had, they've worked hard and therefore deserve what it is. But a lot of people don't realise that people start at a very, very different stages. They have very different life experiences and my life experiences growing up as a white woman in Ireland in a lower middle class. I had some experiences that a lot of other people would never have dreamed of being able to have and, and I think you have to recognise that as you come through. My first job out of university, I was considered a diverse candidate, which I was horrified at. I was absolutely horrified that the fact that I was Irish made me a diverse candidate. I was like, are you kidding me? And that has stuck with me all the way through. Now, a lot of people in our collective organisations assume that they've had to fight for their roles, but they don't actually realise that there are others that maybe they work with who've had a much harder battle to fight through and social equity and the focus on social equity creates more awareness around that. So, at EY we've created a programme — sharing stories, really, really focusing on that storytelling element to ensure that people actually have that degree of awareness around it. Now I would say we are on a journey with that Mona. I would say it's not a concluded focus at all. And we're very much at the beginnings of creating awareness around us and encouraging all of our leaders and all of our people to really think about what is the level of privilege that they bring to a scenario. What where did they set out? Is that the same as others? Can they help and support others along the way? What processes do we have, whether it's recruitment or some of the performance management or even more importantly, the access that we're giving to people to different projects and engagements and ensure that we are providing similar access to everyone. So, referencing James's story, to your point that the short brand manager that you're working with getting the same access as the tall white guy that you worked with for the last few years and questioning that and ensuring that you're giving equal opportunity to both of those individuals so they can be equally successful.

Bitar

I think that story about there's so much more to do as I've been getting more educated on this field both internally and externally. The path we are only at the start of the path in so many different aspects and I think there is so much more to do. But in some areas, I sometimes feel that there's almost a little bit of a fear of talking about certain topics, etc. because people are cautious, which is why I really think it's really important to talk about these topics.

Rachel, I'm going to come to you in a minute, but before I do EY sponsored the Cranfield women on boards research and we've done that for a number of years now and we have seen over the last X number of years the push to have more women on boards. And whilst we can see that we've probably got into a 40% level, actually a lot of those are not in authoritative roles, they're often in NED roles etc. So, I sometimes think how we avoid, on a cynical day I could say is a tick box exercise around some of that, and actually ensure that we have the opportunity. So, given your influential roles, CEO, CFO of organisations, how important is equity in creating greater representation at senior levels from a gender perspective? And how important is that for role modelling, what comes to next, because you know, we really think that we've got to focus on executive succession planning and the pipeline because the talent is there, it's not an issue of talent to my mind certainly. So, I'd love to hear your views on that.

Osborne

Well, I mean I think, you know, your question is how important is it? I mean it's really important if you think about unconscious bias, if you think about how in the workplace, you can recruit and reward behaviours that are in your own likeness through that unconscious bias. And if you think about the terms like chemistry and I get on with somebody, it's our social instincts of likeness that actually played out and I think in the workplace work against us and lead to exclusion and those impartial decisions. And so actually you've got to bring the unconscious out into the open and make it conscious. I think that is really important for everyone in a leadership role. I think what you have to do as a leader is you have to create the climate in which a culture can thrive around inclusiveness and equitable culture. Because social inequity and gender inequity are very close to my heart. One of the things that we've done at Ted Baker is we've chosen 5 charity partnerships that all focus on improving social mobility. Because, to me that is one of the things at the heart of the problems that we're trying to solve as we as we talk today, but within EY with your programmes. And one of them is smart works, it's specifically aimed at helping disadvantaged women into or back into the workplace and Ted Baker we donate clothes, there's coaching, we give them clothes they can wear at their first interview because they may not have the affordability to get those interview clothes that look more corporate than ones they probably have. And what I've been making sure happens is that this is a visible part of what is happening within our organisation that we the leadership want to make social mobility part of what Ted does and contributes to the world and I think we think about how do you, how do you get more women in leadership positions? I mean, to be honest with you, put a woman in as a chief executive. That has allowed me, I've been a CFO for years. You only have a partial influence. But as the chief exec you can hire, you have the hiring decisions, you have the cultural decisions, and I would like to be able to say that I had a female chair and she brought in a diverse board. Sometimes it's that that you just go that social instinct of bringing people of your like means that you need more women in those senior positions to do that as well as getting the consciousness of everybody else to not fight against it.

Bitar

I also thank Rachel on that. It's so important on all aspects, gender, but other aspects too, you can't be what you can't see and therefore for a lot of the younger women in our pipelines across the corporate if they don't have those role models it's very difficult for them because you can't be what you can't see. So, I wholeheartedly agree the importance of that.

Osborne

I'm not particularly hierarchical. Hierarchy exists for some, in some areas for positivity, but in many areas, again, the unconscious side of it is that it's unhelpful. But I've been having, I call it tea with Rachel. We have a cup of tea with each of the functions, and they can ask me any question they want, and it could be personal, it can be work it, whatever it is, because I want to break down that that I'm somehow different to them. Yes, I've worked hard and I'm probably longer in my career than them, so I've had longer to work at it. But if they can relate to me at a human level, it breaks down more barriers in their mind. Not just that there's a role model that I could aspire to be, but wow, this person is actually normal. Not weird and actually I could be like that. You know, it's I think it's important for us all to do more of that.

Pereira

So yeah, I just wanted to bring in a few thoughts kind of bouncing off that. When I was thinking about this recording, one of the things that really touched me was all of the women who have never had a look in and one kind of appreciates that you know the corporate world does a lot for the people who are there or kind of on the edges. But then there's just millions of people who will never listen to a podcast like this, who will never really have the space to dream of something different, and so it's so nice to hear Rachel, those movements about really reaching out to help people come in who might not otherwise come in and the other thing I wanted to talk about was just a little bit about that cultural point, because when coaching with organisations, it's obviously not enough to have all the policies and all of those things you know, people need fundamentally to feel safe and they need to feel safe to make points that might essentially risk their belonging, right? You step in through the door, you're invited, you get a job. But when you push up against things, you risk your belonging. And people won't do that unless they feel it's safe to and that is one of the great roles of leaders, to make sure that those conversations are had and that that vulnerability is shown so that other people can step in. And I think that also, in my experience at least, there's a kind of two-way street there. I've certainly found it very empowering when younger people have spoken up because it encourages me as a leader to speak up. So, there's a kind of dynamic there where we all play off each other.

Bitar

I think that's absolutely right James and I think that culture of safety comes from people being authentic and open. I'm going to come back to the topic on barriers in a minute which I'd like to raise for women and maybe give you a chance to think about this because increasingly as I talk to people one of the things that keeps coming up is childcare and the cost of childcare in this country and how much of a barrier that really is and I've been doing a little bit of research and actually the cost of childcare in this country is actually quite significant compared to a number of other countries, so I'd like to explore that in a second around this. But before I do, James, let me come back to you. Because one of the things that perhaps I hate the most is that sometimes there's a view when you're talking about gender that it's a woman's problem and for women to fix. And actually, the importance of gender equity is important to everyone and therefore allies are incredibly important and the male voice, which I was so delighted to have you here, and you're a great example of that. So, what advice would you give to people listening around this? How do you become a better ally to gender equity, but you don't necessarily know where to start because for a lot of people, there's the journey.

Pereira

Yeah, and for me every time I have a conversation with somebody, I found out more things that surprise me. So, I guess the headline point for me would be never underestimate what you might be for somebody else. We just don't know what influence we might have. It's kind of in the nature of helping that, and I touched upon it just now, that the relationship is a mutually beneficial one. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You know, everyone who helps somebody else will get something out of it themselves, whatever that might be. And so, I think the first thing is to take the step and reach out. Because it's by connecting that we gather up the energy that that enables us to help, and people will see things in us that we can't see in ourselves about what we might do. And so, reaching out to colleagues or to people in D&I positions or to groups, there are lots of women's groups and so on. I think that's the first thing. I think the second thing is to realise that there are different ways of helping. There are lots of people who help quietly behind the scenes, and no one would know what they're doing. I'm kind of not like that. There's another kind of helping which I quite enjoy which is the kind of more of the poking helping the kind of stirring up. And I think for that you have to be willing to take risks on behalf of other people really. You have to be willing to stand up and speak at potential what might seem as personal cost in order to build a bridge for other people to come along. And again, that is something that leaders can do. I think the third thing is to create these safe spaces and then have the conversations and the kind of things that I've really been educated in are looking at what are the inner roles that women are playing. Not that they're kind of outer roles job descriptions, but the inner roles that they're doing which they kind of acquire in some way like organising the social events and HR related, people related roles and so on, which I know it's a generalisation but, you know, a lot of women have a natural capacity for, but it's not always valued or recognised and it's not necessarily what they want in the workplace, right? So that's one thing, what are women having to do that that I as a man, I'm not having to do? That's the kind of classic privilege question. And then someone said to me last night, and I was quizzing someone in preparation for this, that what they found really helpful was moving the conversation on beyond caring. Because we can all access that and of course that's super important, we can all access that. But once you move on beyond caring, you start to see other things like networking for example, how comfortable are women walking into a room that's male dominated or sitting around a table that's male dominated. And then there are a couple of other more intimate things, I want to say. One, is about inclusion more generally. I think it's really important, particularly in the kind of world of polarised identity politics and so on, that we keep a space for the people who find these things really challenging, you know, for the men who are threatened by this for people who might think because of the way they've been brought up or whatever that somehow women are, and we need to listen to those voices because we want to carry people along the way and not have workplaces that are full of tension. And the other thing I'd say is, and I come across this in the kind of one-on-one coaching space a lot. That there's probably a lot of personal work to be done for many people around their own comfort, particularly again, a generalisation, but a lot of women have often had caring roles in the home growing up, for sick parents and so on. And we naturally learn our pattern of relationships in the home and whether we like it or not, at some level we carry them into the workplace with us and there's also a kind of a piece of personal work to be done often on unravelling and healing those parts of ourselves that can then empower us better in the workplace. So, I think that might be an answer to your question.

Bitar

Some very powerful points there, James and also links to something Rachel was talking about earlier and you mentioned thinking about all the women that aren't in this party or who might not listen. And again, we were having a conversation earlier this week more on social mobility, but I think it really applies to your caring point is, right from early years the impact of role models and what you see is really important. So, one of the things we were talking about how do we, as each individual, take accountability to reach out to be mentors, to visit schools, to have outreach programmes. Because actually I'm really lucky to be a mentor on a programme for migrant leaders and I was speaking to a 15 year old girl not long ago and who was really into Biology and computers, but had never heard of the word biotech and we had a bit of a conversation about that and no kidding, she came back with like a university level essay having researched it and I thought you know, this is amazing and this person would never have known about something like this if hadn't had someone to explore it. So, I think the reach is really important. Anne-Marie, I want to come to talking a little bit around the myth of meritocracy. Does that still exist? Do we need to shift the narrative to accelerate change? Is there anything wrong with creating positive opportunities and what do we need to do in the workplace?

Balfe

I think it's a fascinating question. It's a conversation that I have regularly with individuals that are struggling sometimes with change and moving forward. I'll get a statement of well, we use a merit-based system, that's how we've always worked. I had a conversation earlier this week where somebody said to me, I don't judge on the basis of gender, it doesn't even enter my thought process and my response to that individual was ‘I'm sure it doesn't consciously enter your thought process, but can you explain to me the times when you've set a team up? What's been the makeup of the team? Do you go back to the same individuals all the time?’ So, we started to have discussion around that which I think this individual found somewhat challenging but we kind of got to a better outcome eventually. So going back to your question Mona, I think that the concept of a meritocracy. I think if we're all really honest with ourselves across the organisations that we operate in, we like to think that we have a meritocracy. We like to think that that’s the position that we start from. We like to think that in an individual social position at birth or when they've joined the organisation has no impact on how they will move forward. We like to think that their gender doesn't have an impact, but the reality is in a lot of instances it still does and until we're honest about that within our organisations and look at what we can do to address that, I think in some instances we're kidding ourselves. So, I think we need to just kind of peel that onion back a little bit more.

Bitar

That's an uncomfortable truth sometimes, though, isn't it?

Balfe

It's a very uncomfortable truth, and I think if we continue with that myth, I think we then, we're setting ourselves up for failure because we're assuming that everybody's the same and we're assuming that everybody has access to the same opportunities and we're assuming that I’ll operate the same way and we'll all get to the same outcome. That's not a reality. Let's be very honest about it. But it's uncomfortable to think about that. It's uncomfortable for a lot of us to understand or recognise the privilege that we come with. And until you really recognise the privilege that you come with, like I go back to that statement of I was considered a diversity hire when I was 21. And I thought that was ridiculous because, you know, I had gone to an OK school, I'd gone to a good university and never had to struggle for many things in my life. I've worked really hard, but I still came with privilege, right. And you have to kind of recognise that and feel comfortable that that's the position that you're in.

Bitar

No, I mean look again I think we do have to face into some of these issues really because if we want to accelerate the change, we're going to have to do things differently. Can I come back to this childcare point? Because this is a genuinely open question, should we as you know as corporate as the corporate world and the wide descent, should we be pushing more and putting more pressure on some significant policy changes around childcare, is that a really significant barrier or is that something that is easy to point to? Rachel, what are your thoughts on that?

Osborne

I mean, when you think about all the reasons, let’s assume that you're talking about people who are in the organisation already so we've talked about the people who are never even get the chance to get into the organisation and that's a different sort of area but the thing that comes up over and over again is children and the role of the woman versus the role of the man and then the economics of childcare and I think it is important, it is the single biggest barrier probably for why you magically see equality in numbers through many industries up to a certain level and then suddenly it magically changes. Well, it's not magic at all. It's that there's been a family that there's been a choice made to have children and that's had an impact on the way a woman feels, or a partnership feels that they can economically operate and get the parenting right. And we should just say it probably is the biggest barrier to getting more people like me, you know, I would say your average chief executive is a man is younger than a woman, I mean I put my career on hold whilst I had my boys and didn’t leave at a time to you know, go onwards and upwards and consciously did that. But the men that I was with, they didn't have that pause button because whatever was going on in their own decision making perhaps their partner who was a woman was doing the same and I've talked to people about the cost of childcare, I didn't appreciate it until recently, but the cost of childcare in the UK is much higher than many others. That is a shocker and that does need to be. I think that definitely we should all do something about lobbying for that. But also, there is an economic reality that you've got to pay for childcare of some sort probably, unless you're very lucky that you've got a support network there. And that means that if you have your children earlier in your career, where you frankly probably earn less it becomes an even bigger barrier to progress because you can't actually then get the childcare, which means you then may go part time and as bad as it may be, there are still barriers to people's perception of someone working part time versus full time about how ambitious they are with their career. So, it's a huge topic that I think yeah, we kind of go oh, let's do a little bit of this and let's have men having the same amount of parental leave as women, but that that's not going to fix this. There is more to do, and I think probably it does start with the economics of it that if you can make it more affordable you can remove some of those barriers.

Balfe

There were some reports that came out earlier this week and last week in terms of the economic impact and the cost of childcare for an individual coming back at the percentage of your salary that you then attribute to childcare and how that accelerates whether it's one child or two children and then the financial impact or the participation of those individuals over a period of time. The statistics are dreadful in terms of the number of women that then opt out entirely because it just is too expensive after a period of time, it's 50%-60% of their income to pay for childcare. You then leave the workforce entirely or you're going part time. And to Rachel's point, it's so difficult to then re-enter at a certain point later on because you've either your skill set has become, has been impacted or you've lost your confidence, or you're out of that network, you're out of the loop. It's really difficult to come back into the environment. So as organisations I think we've an awful lot more to do to lobby to actually look at that and to influence a little bit more effectively. The government at the moment are having such big, large discussions about the impact of early retirement across the population as a whole. I would look at that and challenge that and say what about the impact of all of the economically viable women who have either intentionally or otherwise had to leave the workforce because they can't afford the childcare, because they are the primary carer whether it is for their children or elderly parents or other pieces as well. To me that's having a more significant financial impact I believe.

Bitar

So, I take away, it's definitely a topic I think we need to, and I think we need to put, I mean there's quite a lot of good research out there, but I think it, it needs a louder platform and in terms of what we do. We are coming towards the end of this, but I'd like to ask you maybe a question that you can all answer a little bit around. In your own spheres, and Rachel, I'll start with you. What are the biggest disruptive actions that companies can take now? So, what can they do now? And Anne Marie, I'll ask you a similar question and then James, I'll slightly twist that question for you saying, you know, what would you say to the non-corporate world, given that you’ve probably experienced a lot of that through your coaching as well and through that what do they need to do to change that pipeline. So, Rachel?

Osborne

I think you know, there are things that can be disruptive that could also be argued to be biased and inequitable. The sort of the women only shortlists, the quotas, the targets. So, you know it is a difficult territory to disrupt whilst at the same time trying to remain equitable. So, ones that are in an easier space would be reverse mentoring, so having junior women mentoring more senior women and men and more junior men with more senior women and men. Just some of that reverse mentoring is a disruption. We haven't done it in Ted. It's something that when I was looking at the questions and the topics that you wanted to talk about, it suddenly struck me that that is something that can be a disruption to a culture that needs to change. One thing I read about, which isn't specifically around gender, but it's a disruption, is The Body Shop. They have this open hiring policy, which means that the first person to apply is the person that gets offered the role and therefore at the moment it's limited to stores and distribution frontline. But that means that and the focus for them was maybe less around gender but more around people who have neuro issues or other disabilities that are less visible but prevent them in an interview from getting to the next stage. And they said they have moved from 12% of their hires being from disadvantaged groups to 75%. That is a game changing disruption of a policy. It's brave to have done it. Because I am sure there will have been loads of arguments about, well, if you do that you're not filtering for capability or the ability to do the job. But actually wow, that to me if you can find a way of doing that at a more senior level and focusing it at a gender or other barriers that you're trying to remove. Something like that really blew me away when I read about it.

Bitar

Wow. Yeah, it's, it's definitely not something I've heard of before. So, it'll take a bit of time to process. James

Pereira

So, I guess if you're asking from a non-corporate sense, I suppose one of the things that I have as a self-employed person and working with individuals is freedom, right? I have freedom to choose what I do. I don't need to ask a manager or consult a corporate strategy or anything like that. And I guess the thing that most comes to mind for me is leveraging networks. There are all sorts of connections that I can give people to all sorts of places without needing to ask anyone's permission or worry about what anyone might think about it. And that's one thing. I think the second thing going back to the kind of more intimate space and what comes up in the coaching space is partly getting people to understand particularly women, the strengths of a lot of what they bring. You know, we've talked about caring, but then as a leader that means the capacity to look out for people. It means a sensitivity to understand how one might come across, it means perhaps an approachability that other people don't have and so being able to kind of turn the coin over and see the strengths in things, I think is important and then to have the braveness to be able to draw upon other qualities that perhaps don't come so easily. The boundary setting, the ability to say no, the capacity to bare disapproval of others, particularly men. And so on. You know, those are those are all capacities that people can draw upon, I'm bound to say often through resolutions to do with parental relationships. Each one of us is a man and a woman. Each one of us is the maker, is a mother and a father, and we and we can draw upon these qualities. As of right, because we're, you know, we have these two people who have created us. We can draw upon these qualities as of right and bring them as we, as we need them. But that takes work.

Bitar

Yeah, I mean I think that point around, I would probably say empathy. And we know that in the disruptive world we're living at the moment that that is a critical leadership skill. Whether you're a man or a woman, being able to apply empathy is really important. And I think there's good evidence, as you say that women are particularly good at empathy. So, they should hone that. Anne-Marie, over to you and then I’ll wrap this up a little.

Balfe

Thanks Mona. One of the things that we talked a little bit there about targets and things like that. I think there is an opportunity for a lot of organisations to look at it slightly differently and think about how do I get proportional representation. So instead of setting a target that feels maybe uncomfortable that people don't necessarily buy into what's the proportion of your population and how do you then ensure that you've got that same proportion at the next level up and the next level up and I think that's a more comfortable position for a lot of our leaders to buy into. So that would be my starting position. I think the other piece and Mona just to your earlier point around empathy and using some of those different skills and if I look at, if I look at a lot of and I guess it's a bit of a stereotype, but a lot of female leaders will say ‘I don't want to apply for a position until I feel I've got 80% or 90% of that skill set.’ A lot of our male colleagues would say yeah ‘I'm good if I've got 40 or 50’ now that again stereotype, a bit of a generalisation there. But I think as you know our male leaders and male allies, you have an opportunity to shift. You have an opportunity to encourage, to support, to sponsor more female leaders into positions and give them the confidence to actually step into those roles. And be a disruptor yourself in doing that. So, who are you sponsoring? Who are you advocating for when they're not actually in the room? So, who are you actually giving an opportunity for that doesn't look like you, that doesn't have the same background as you? How are you challenging yourself and others in leadership positions to do that to change the makeup of your population and actually create a more equitable environment. And create those opportunities for people in your organisation to see others like them in leadership roles to be the role models of the future as well.

Bitar

Yeah, I think that's a really great point, Anne-Marie. And actually, we were discussing at the launch of the Cranfield report and too often men are judged on their potential. Women are judged on their performance, which is quite interesting. And I think you kind of wrap that up quite nicely. OK, we're coming to a close. And one of the things I like to do in this podcast is I like to end by asking all of you to finish a sentence, which is I belong when… And let me start with you, Rachel, I belong when…

Osborne

In a company or corporate environment, I feel I belong when I have a sense of common purpose and the shared commitment and there's camaraderie.

Bitar

Lovely. Thank you, Rachel. Anne-Marie.

Balfe

I belong when I am supported and challenged in a safe environment.

Bitar

Lovely. And James?

Pereira

And mine's a bit dreamy actually. So, I belong when I sit by the open fire, and I gaze up at the stars.

Bitar

Ohh, lovely. What a lovely way to end James. I wanted to thank you all. I've been in a fascinating conversation and it's so important and I think we've raised this a couple of times to have the conversation. And people say, well will this make a difference. And I believe it's a lot of small conversations that add up to one very big conversation. So, thank you so much and I think we've got to keep this conversation alive, not just around International Woman's Day but every day around this. One thing we're doing would be why around this is all ‘Women. Fast forward’ programme and one of the things we're going to do with this, broadcasters publish some of our resources around the areas that we focus on supporting women entrepreneurs, women and leadership, and our next generation. Because I think actually, we'd like to help other people in doing some of these things. So, I hope you enjoy listening to this episode. Please do subscribe to our series ‘Strong when we Belong’. It's been an absolute pleasure to do this today. Thank you very much.

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